Zito Has Five Contenders in the Derby

Five contending horses, five owners, one set of weathered hands.

Being the most saddled individual in the 131-year history of the Kentucky Derby, trainer Nick Zito at least has his choice of race-day companions.

Yet, come Saturday, he will watch from a most unusual place.

A most appropriate place.

“Alone,” he says.

*

He steps upon the chipped green platform outside Barn 36 and looks out over the dozens of reporters whose bluster and breath are evident in the morning chill.

Nick Zito is right.

He’s alone.

This morning there are no assistants, no publicity people, no bodyguards, nobody to laugh at a dumb joke or interrupt a tough question.

Funny how, in an age when every sports star seems to have three sycophants, the guy with all the horses has no posse.

“I’ve got to be an absolute joke to feel anything other than so blessed, so grateful, so humble,” Zito says.

Yet so targeted.

The only other trainer to show up here with five horses, Wayne Lukas in 1996, ended up winning that year with Grindstone.

So if Zito can’t win with this group -- which accounts for one-fourth of the field -- it would be one of the biggest spills in Derby history.

He has the favorite, Bellamy Road. He has the top two finishers in the Florida Derby, High Fly and Noble Causeway.

He has the third-place finisher in the Arkansas Derby, Andromeda’s Hero. He has the fourth-place finisher in the Blue Grass Stakes, Sun King.

In a combined 30 starts, his horses have finished in the money 25 times.

“There’s going to be a suicide watch on Nick if he doesn’t win,” Lukas says.

But if Zito does win, he could actually lose horses, as the other four owners might feel slighted.

“That’s the problem with having more than one owner in the same race,” says Bob Holthus, trainer of Greater Good. “If your horses finish one and two, you’re gonna lose the one that finished second, because the owner is going to think it should have been the winner.”

Finally, as if Zito didn’t have enough bosses, he also has to answer to the Boss.

In this situation, isn’t working for George Steinbrenner, owner of Bellamy Road and baseball’s New York Yankees, a little like Joe Torre trying to manage the entire American League East?

“Mr. Steinbrenner can be impulsive,” Lukas says with a grin. “I’m sure anything short of a victory for him is going to be a big disappointment.”

Which leaves Zito alone at the end of dugout with no Don Zimmer, his sharp New York accent and a temporary fence around Barn 36 as his only defense.

One of the signs on that plastic fence, the only one on the Churchill Downs backside, reads, “Keep Out.”

But underneath it adds, “Thank you.”

That is Zito, who is embracing his big moment as well as any sports figure of recent vintage, showing a rare appreciation for something that is far bigger than what could be carried on his perpetually slouched shoulders.

“I don’t think this will ever happen again, I don’t see how it could,” he says. “I can’t see it.”

Later, he adds, smiling: “We all know this fence is not going to be up here next year.”

With bits of Bob Baffert’s white hair and Lukas’ wit, all tucked under a cap and a grin, Zito has chosen to handle the pressure with a pat instead of a whip.

A reporter asks if he was at the Wood Memorial, where Bellamy Road won by a record 17 1/2 lengths.

“What, was I a mirage? Were you in the freezer? Of course I was there!” he says with a laugh, then later kisses the male reporter on the cheek.

This reporter asks if he’s been losing sleep.

“You can get stretched,” he says. “But God let me sleep a good 6-7 hours last night because I knew I would need this [answer] in the morning.”

His cellphone rings, a plain tone, and he never even takes it out of his jacket pocket.

Guess it isn’t Steinbrenner.

“This is just an outlet for him, this is not his primary business,” Zito says, noting that Steinbrenner has stayed in the background. “His primary business is what goes on in the Bronx ... he’d like the attention away from him and on his horse.”

Zito is asked about the boot-tingling experience of walking onto the track on Derby Day, and he laughs.

“You feel like you are walking into the Roman Colosseum, you feel like a gladiator,” he says. “Of course, you all know what happened to the gladiators.”

His raspy voice is briefly accompanied by an announcement blaring from the backside loudspeakers about an auction to raise money for cancer research.

He stops talking. He listens.

“You hear, they’re talking about kids with cancer,” he says. “Now what could be more important than that?”

The charm of the racing game is built on underdogs, but it’s hard to root against Zito, whose third Derby victory in some ways would be his easiest ... and most difficult.

“I always think about this quote ... In this business, you are always one minute from nothing,” he says.

If only more of our heroes could do as much with that minute.

Bill Plaschke can be reached at bill.plaschke@latimes.com. To read previous columns by Plaschke, go to latimes.com/plaschke.